Audio Interference

"Other cities are trying to get rid of their green space. If they get rid of their green space they can stop people from public assembly, which they're nervous about." - Bill DiPaola In this episode, we focus on the history of New York's community gardens, specifically on the Lower East Side. Matt Patterson and Mike Dola talk to author, journalist, and activist Bill Weinberg, as well as Bill DiPaola, one of the founders of the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space (www.morusnyc.org). The mission of MoRUS is to preserve the history of grassroots activism and promote environmentally-sound, community-based urban ecologies. Music: "Lower East Side" by David Peel and "Smoke" by Rafael Archangel. To see Mike Dola's images of La Plaza Cultural (http://laplazacultural.com), one of the stops on Bill's walking tour, check out our blog at: http://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-47-lower-east-side-community-gardens/ Produced by Interference Archive.

"Puppetry, especially giant puppets, gives people glimpses of this bigger reality that is beyond what our minds normally inhabit." -Joe Therrien, Bread and Puppet Theater In this episode of audio interference, we are speaking with folks from Bread and Puppet Theater, one of the oldest, self-supporting theatrical companies in the country. Bread and Puppet have been creating performances that tackle social justice issues, and feeding people homemade sourdough bread, since 1963. We speak with puppeteers Amy Trompetter, Linda Elbow, Josh Krugman, Sam Wilson, and Joe Therrien about the group’s history and legacy of performance and activism work. To learn more about bread and puppet, visit their website at www.breadandpuppet.org We also have print materials from the Bread and Puppet Press in our archive, which you can stop by and see during our open hours, Thursday, 1-9pm and Friday-Sunday, 12-5pm. The music in this episode is from "The Honey Lets Go Home Opera" by Bread and Puppet Theater, performed at a Thea

"When I first took karate, I was already an activist. And I could see right away what this could do for women in the 70s." -- Annie Ellman In this episode, we talk to two groups that teach self-defense skills: Pop Gym (popgym.org)and the Center for Anti-Violence Education (caeny.org). We hear from CAE founder Annie Ellman, along with Izzy Finkelstein and Rachel Marks, and Pop Gym founder Grey Cohen. This episode includes audio from a self-defense demo by the CAE Peer Educators at our block party in September 2017, originally broadcast live on Radio Free Gowanus (www.radiofreegowanus.org). Music: "Dawn II" by Swelling, "Hit or Miss" by Odetta. Produced by Interference Archive.

On February 9, 2018, Interference Archive presented a talk by Silvia Federici, co-founder of the Wages for Housework movement, on the publication of her new book, The New York Wages for Housework Committee, 1972-1977. Throughout the 1970s, the Wages for Housework movement developed an analysis of women’s reproductive labor— “housework” broadly conceived— as a primary site for mobilization. The movement, publication, and Federici's talk ask us: How do we understand and value our own reproductive labor? How can we organize around this work in a way that is transformative both of our own lives and builds a collective opposition to a global capitalist system? For more information about Silvia's new book: https://www.akpress.org/wages-for-housework.html For more information about Silvia Federici, check out Audio Interference Episode 22 (http://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-22-silvia-federici/), in which Silvia talks not only about Wages for Housework, but also about her collection of anarchist and

"People have made this false equivalency between punishment and safety, and so I think in the work that we’re doing, always, we’re trying to put the emphasis on health. We’re trying to put the emphasis on freedom." - Imani Brown In this episode, we catch up with the organizers of the Close Rikers campaign, featured in episode 28. Louise Barry speaks to Imani Brown, Organizing Coordinator at the Katal Center for Health, Equity, and Justice, about changes to the campaign since Mayor Di Blasio announced his plan to close Rikers Island. Learn more at www.closerikers.org or at www.katalcenter.org. Music featured in this episode: "Resiste!" by El Zombi Flash. Produced by Interference Archive.

In this episode of Audio Interference, we’re chatting with two veteran-led projects: Frontline Paper (a project of Frontline Arts) and About Face: Veterans Against the War. While their techniques are vastly different, both are building communities that challenge and subvert the stereotypes of what veterans can and should be. For more information about Frontline Paper or Frontline Arts, visit frontlinearts.org or @Frontline_Arts To learn more about About Face: Veterans Against the War, check out ivaw.org or @vetsaboutface Our thanks to David Keefe, Eli Wright, Claude Copeland and Matt Howard. Music: Postmodern Cloud Modifications/ Gravity's Rainbow by The Fucked Up Beat is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. The Myth of Information/ Pattern Recognition by The Fucked Up Beat is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License. Produced by Interference Archive.

"My favorite thing is just the dialogue that gets created, and having people understand a little bit more about their communities and the potential for them to slow down or halt directions that they may not want it to go in." In this episode, we talk to Dan Kaminsky and Michael Higgins Jr of Social Justice Tours (www.socialjusticetours.com). Social Justice Tours uses tours as a medium to dig beneath the surface of what New Yorkers regularly see. We aim to engage New Yorkers in a critical dialogue about the past, present and future of our city, from the perspective of marginalized populations. The ultimate aim is to assist in movement building; that is to disperse information, expose injustice, and highlight inequality in a digestible, understandable way to encourage thought and inspire action. The group offers tours focusing on Trump's influence in midtown, gentrification in Williamsburg, and the radical history of Lower Manhattan. In this episode, Rob Smith and Tyler McBrien take a tour on environmental

"Anybody can join. There's so many different access points for you to join the movement to say no to white nationalism, and there's so many ways to say no." no. NOT EVER will be at Interference Archive in early 2018. If You Don’t They Will’s no. NOT EVER. installation and accompanying workshops provide an anti-racist, anti-fascist framework for understanding the rise of white nationalism in the current moment. This installation draws inspiration from research and organizing work against white nationalism by members and from interviews with rural activists who worked to fight white nationalism in their communities in the 1980’s and 1990’s at the height of the “Northwest Territorial Imperative.” If You Don’t They Will has now interviewed 20+ organizers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho that represent complex intersections of race, gender, class and culture involved in this resistance movement. Produced by Interference Archive.

"I think we are, as immigrants, left out. Our voices are erased from the narrative. It's not that we don't want to tell our stories. It's that there are no spaces for us to tell our stories." - Lorena Kourousias This episode of Audio Interference focuses on the Monument Quilt, a collective art project and an on-going collection of stories from survivors of rape and abuse, written, stitched, and painted onto red fabric. We speak with Lorena Kourousias, a social worker and activist who works with immigrant women, about the Monument Quilt's project at the US-Mexico border on the 100th day of Trump's presidency. For more information about The Monument Quilt, visit www.themonumentquilt.org Information about the border protest can be found here: https://themonumentquilt.org/massive-protest/ The Monument Quilt is one of Interference Archive's collaborators featured in the exhibition, Take Back the Fight: http://interferencearchive.org/take-back-the-fight/ Music featured in this episode: "The Beach Era (Dj

"To be healthy, or even to be seen as someone who deserves care, you have to look a very specific way, and those are ways that are often privileged in our society, so white, able-bodied, thin, rich...we believe that every person gets to have bodily autonomy and define for themselves: what does healing look like for me right now? what does health mean for me?" In this episode of Audio Interference, we are speaking with folks from Harriet’s Apothecary, an intergenerational, gender nonconforming collective of healers, artists, health professionals, magicians and activists who are expanding the way we understand health. Speakers Adaku Utah, Naimah Efia Johnson and Beatrice Anderson talk about the legacy of healing, the connection between health and abolitionism, and the community healing spaces they create for people who identify as black, indigenous and people of color. To learn more about Harriet's Apothecary, visit their website at www.harrietsapothecary.com. There you can find their oracle deck project, "36

This week we're talking to Sascha Altman DuBrul, the co-founder of the Icarus Project, a radical peer-to-peer mental health support group, about mad pride and radical mental health. The organization started in 2003 when DuBrul and a few friends started traveling the country and talking to people who had been diagnosed as bipolar or schizophrenic but rejected the dominant models of treatment. The Icarus Project is active nationally and at the local level: National Chapter: theicarusproject.net NYC Chapter: www.nycicarus.org You can read work published by DuBrul and other members of the Icarus Project at Interference Archive. Some titles include: Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off Psychiatric Drugs Madness & Oppression: A Mad Maps Guide (Images on our blog at: http://interferencearchive.org/audio-interference-38-sascha-altman-dubrul/) DuBrul has written recently about spirituality and mental health on his website Maps to the Other Side: http://www.ma

"Even if it seems like i doesn't directly relate to food, it does. Food relates to housing, to life, to water, to land." - Qiana Mickie This episode includes an interview with Qiana Mickie, Executive Director of Just Food (www.justfood.org), about the challenges of working toward fairer food access in New York and the relationships between food justice and other social movements. We also talk to Jen Hoyer and Maggie Schreiner, curators of Fair Food Nation, Interference Archive's recent exhibition at the Ace Hotel. Music: "One," by Red Coat Charmers, and "Feet You're Standing On," by Rough Housers. Produced by Interference Archive.

$pread magazine was an award winning publication produced by and for sex workers from 2005-2011. In 2015, The Feminist Press at CUNY published an anthology of some of its best material. In this week’s episode, we’ll hear from two of its editors, Eliyanna Kaiser and Rachel Aimee, as they discuss the history of the magazine, the evolving depiction of sex workers in mass media, and what the future may hold for the sex workers’ rights movement. Advocacy and organizing groups for sex workers and their allies: Sex Workers Project, part of the Urban Justice Center - http://sexworkersproject.org Red Umbrella Project - http://redumbrellaproject.org SWOP - Sex Workers Outreach Project, A national network with links to regional chapters - http://www.new.swopusa.org Music: “All Will See,” “Traces,” and “Whispers” by Hyson. “Great is the Contessa” by Blue Dot Sessions. Produced by Interference Archive.

Interference Archive’s summer 2017 exhibition Take Back the Fight: Resisting Sexual Violence from the Ground Up--a collaboration with Lesbian Herstory Archives--focuses on organized responses to gender and sexual violence, highlighting the ways individuals and communities have developed creative and powerful grassroots and non-institutional justice and healing practices. In this episode of Audio Interference, we talk to the organizers of the exhibition: Lani Hanna, Melissa Forbis, Rachel Corbman, Monica Johnson, and Louise Barry. Take Back the Fight is on view now at Interference Archive, and will be up through October 29. The music and spoken word pieces featured in this episode are from the album Free to Fight, which is part of the archive’s collection and is also included in the exhibition. Free to Fight was produced by Candy Ass Records in 1995. Songs include: 151, "Real Defense;" Mizzery, "Sleepin' Wit' The Enemy;" Excuse Seventeen, "Forever Fired;" Fifth Column, "Don't." Produced by Interferenc

Interference Archive has been hosting a series of Propaganda Parties: events where we distribute free materials like posters and stickers, created by contemporary artists in response to current struggles. On March 5, we hosted an event called “Building Resistance.” Radio Free Gowanus, our neighborhood pirate radio station, broadcast live throughout the afternoon. In this episode, we’re sharing some of the highlights from the event, as Mike Clemow talks to our community about what it means to build resistance. This episode includes excerpts from interviews with: Womens March Action Club, Roxanne & Andrea, Raven Cras, Ola Ronke, Justin & Nicole, Amy Khoshbin, and Nora Almeida. To learn more about some of the projects mentioned in this episode, check out the Free Black Womens Library (thefreeblackwomanslibrary.tumblr.com/), the Center for Anti-Violence Education (caeny.org/), or Self-Care After A Fuhk Boi (www.selfcareafb.com). The full interviews can be heard at www.radiofreegowanus.org. All the son

"What we're doing with Kichwa Hatari is we're activating people first, because the language won't rescue itself. We have to rely on people to rescue a language." -Charlie Uruchima In this episode, we’re looking at language diversity in New York City. We will talk to folks whose work supports the speakers of minority languages, and discuss the importance of language as a source of cultural empowerment and as tool for community organizing. In the first segment, we speak with Charlie Uruchima, one of the founders of Kichwa Hatari, the very first Kichwa radio program in the US. To learn more about Kichwa Hatari, visit their website: www.kichwahatari.org. The radio program airs every Friday evening from 6-8 pm EST on the station Radio El Tambo: www.radioeltambostereo.com. In the second segment of this episode, we speak with Ross Perlin, writer, linguist and Assistant Director of the Endangered Language Alliance, a nonprofit organization that works with immigrant and refugee populations in NYC to help maint

"We did not go in there with the notion that we have all the answers to lead the working class, that we are the revolutionary leadership...the people who already understood the workplace, who understood the industry, who understood the union and its history were very often the rank and file workers who had been there for a long time." - Dan La Botz In this episode, we compare labor conditions and labor organizing in 1970s America and contemporary UK. Charlie Morgan interviewed Dan La Botz and Jamie Woodcock. Dan LaBotz was a founding member of Teamsters for a Democratic Union and is the author of many books on labor politics including Made in Indonesia: Indonesian Workers Since Suharto (South End Press, 2001), Cesar Chavez and La Causa (Pearson Longman, 2006), and What Went Wrong? The Nicaraguan Revolution: A Marxist Analysis (Brill, 2016). For twenty years he was the editor of Mexican Labor News and Analysis and is a co-editor of New Politics. Jamie Woodcock completed his PhD at Goldsmiths, University

"There were people in the buildings who modeled themselves after homesteaders and very much wanted to become homeowners, wanted the approval of the city, wanted to act respectable--and there were other people who were doing this as a critique of private property. There were people who were fixing up their space as if it was going to be their family home for generations, and there were people who just needed a temporary place to stay and were making the best of it." - Amy Starecheski Louise Barry interviews Amy Starecheski, author of Ours to Lose: When Squatters Became Homeowners in New York City, about the process of transforming Lower East Side squats into limited-equity low-income co-ops, and the conflicts and challenges generated by this process. Amy's book is an oral history of squatting on the Lower East Side, and this episode includes excerpts from her interviews. The squatters whose voices are included in this podcast are: Famous Chrome, Maria DeDominicis, Rolando Politi, Fly, Chris Flambeaux, Nig

"People have knowledge, and they can put together stations that'll blow the doors off a government station...you get set up in the Amazon in Brazil, and you set up twenty dollars worth of equipment, you can blow a thousand miles out because there's nothing to interfere with that signal." - Rob Robinson Charlie Morgan talks to Rob Robinson, housing activist and former co-host of "Global Movements, Urban Struggles" on WBAI. Music: "Quasi Motion," by Kevin MacLeod, courtesy of the Free Music Archive. Produced by Interference Archive.

"We wanted it to have a kind of handmade look...it seemed like it would be better than a curtain and a potted plant, which had been the usual for a public access program." -- Deedee Halleck In this episode, Sabine Bernards talks to Deedee Halleck about the origins and history of Paper Tiger TV, the community media collective that became a pioneer in video art and public access television. You will also hear clips from some of Paper Tiger's early episodes. Produced by Interference Archive.